12 ms·

Arizona law is pretty friendly to motorists. Generally speaking, you're not supposed to jaywalk and when you do, you are taking your life in your own hands and

by rsj_hn 8y ago

Arizona law is pretty friendly to motorists. Generally speaking, you're not supposed to jaywalk and when you do, you are taking your life in your own hands and the car that hits you is not liable. It's even worse for the pedestrian -- even at an intersection if you walk quickly onto oncoming traffic you do not have the right of way and are responsible for anything that happens to you. It's just not the case that the car is assumed to be at fault in situations like these -- the pedestrian is assumed to be at fault. The pedestrian is not automatically given the right of way and is basically never given the right of way outside of an intersection. This is different than the laws in other states like California. Situations like drunk driving can make a difference, but in this case that's a hard claim to make. Maybe if the car was swerving out of its way to hit her, you could make that case. But arguing that it wasn't doing enough to stop -- that's a tough sell given AZ law. The car had the right of way, it was not acting maliciously, and she walked right in front of it. According to AZ law, asking the car to make what might be a dangerous last second swerve into another lane or slamming on the breaks to avoid hitting her is not a legal obligation as these are unsafe maneuvers. There might be another car behind them or other cars/pedestrians alongside them so the law in AZ doesn't require these types of high risk actions to avoid hitting pedestrians that walk right in front of oncoming traffic. Moreover this person was jaywalking at night in an area without street lights, without even bothering to look both ways, across a median, wearing a black hoodie, through a high speed road right in front of a car that had proper headlights and was going a steady speed. Anyone familiar with AZ law knew that Uber wasn't going to be charged. You may think the law itself is wrong and that cars should be legally required to take last second high risk evasive maneuvers. These are all tradeoffs to which reasonable people will disagree, but changing the law is the job of the Arizona legislature and not of the prosecutor, who made the correct decision, even if it seems like the wrong decision to you.

bryanrasmussen 8y ago
I can of course see how they are not criminally liable under Arizona law where the Automotive laws are pertinent... but, what if someone turns off safety features of a device and then someone is killed if those safety features had been on - would that be manslaughter under Arizona law?
argonaut 8y ago
Minor correction: the area was actually very well lit with street lights. The Uber dashcam video was just poor quality so it gave the impression it was really dark. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-victim-came-from-the-shadows-dont-believe-it/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-...
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  I certainly believe the Uber dashcam video was poor quality. But at the same time, the videos on the link you showed are a bit misleading because the holiday lights are not strung up all year, and in any case the collision happened after the bridge, where to the right of Mill Avenue is a big golf course which is going to be dark at night, and to the left are some desolate office buildings that would also be empty and dark. It's just not a well lit area, neither is it an area with a lot of pedestrians, so there aren't many crosswalks. You can explore for yourself here: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4380916,-111.9434265,3a,75y,339.44h,88.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seT6nIdBMRY0jUlO4xlT4YA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4380916,-111.9434265,3a,75y,...
  - argonaut 8y ago
    From the article: "In this nighttime video, posted to YouTube by Brian Kaufman on Wednesday, the scene of the crash can be seen around 0:33" "Black says in the video as he drives past the point in the road where Herzberg was hit (around 0:33)."
    - rsj_hn 8y ago
      Ahh, OK, so those Christmas lights are gone by then. Yes, if you look, you see a park/golf course on your right and some office buildings on your left. I guess how well lit it is will depend on how many lights are on in the office buildings, plus of course the street lights. But if you poke around the area, you see that the street lights are insufficiently spaced, at least that's my impression. That area north of the river is not a pedestrian area, even along Mill.
Phlarp 8y ago
Is AZ a significant outlier in this regard? Is AZ different enough from say, California, that Uber was incentivized to test in AZ as a way to mitigate liability exposure in the event of fatal crash? I was always curious why they were testing there as opposed to somewhere closer to HQ.
- JeremyBanks 8y ago
  Uber was testing in multiple locations, but they originally moved it to Arizona due to less regulation than they were encountering in California: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-flee-to-arizona-after-california-shutdown/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-f...
- rsj_hn 8y ago
  I don't know the history too well, but remember Uber refusing to get some licenses in California and opting for AZ which doesn't require the same level of licensing. Others should correct me, but that was the buzz at the time. I always thought AZ had these laws because historically a lot of retired people are there who have slower reaction times and aren't going to be doing any stunt driving swerves, and it's generally not a pedestrian or bike friendly place. They prioritize cars. When I saw the protestors a while back pouring onto freeways in the east bay, I remember thinking no way would anyone try that in AZ -- the cars would just run right over them.
  - DougBTX 8y ago
    > stunt driving swerves You've put a lot of emphasis on how dangerous and crazy it would be to have not run over the pedestrian, but in other jurisdictions learning how to do an emergency stop is required for all drivers before being allowed on the road independently. There are many reasons a car might need to stop unexpectedly (including the possibility of cars in front behaving erratically) so stopping along with maintaining safe separation between cars are basic driving skills expected in many countries. From your description AZ might be an outlier though.
    - 8y ago
Pristina 8y ago
Yeah. Not to mention the really nice dinners Uber lawyers took the prosecutor to to discuss the case.
- maxmunzel 8y ago
  [Citation Needed]
Dahoon 8y ago
They would have a hard time testing their cars like this a lot of other places. No wonder they picked Arizona. Around here (I'm in Scandinavia) if a car hits something other than another car it is always the drivers fault, jaywalking pedestrians or not. It is the responsibility of car drivers not to hit softer things - full stop. This and traffic in Paris are the real tests of self driving cars.
- eythian 8y ago
  Yeah, same in the Netherlands, the car driver is at best 50% at fault, typically 100%. I do want to see self driving cars in Amsterdam though, I think they'd just shut down and have a sob after not being able to move due to being swarmed with bikes well within any sort of safety area.
  - bkor 8y ago
    There was a recent video by a Waymo person who dealt with understanding the world. He went into great detail about how to observe things. One thing he mentioned is that the car also has the goal of getting to the destination. There was an example of a pretty packed school area. The safest thing to do might be to completely stop. The car however slowed down and tried to make its intentions clear. Unfortunately I cannot find the video.. it also went into detail of how to spot that something unexpected might happen.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  > It is the responsibility of car drivers not to hit softer things - full stop. I get the feeling a lot of people on HN have never actually driven a vehicle or at least haven't in recent memory. If you're driving through a street at a perfectly safe and reasonable speed a sufficiently stupid pedestrian is still perfectly capable of creating a situation that causes you to hit them. Nothing is foolproof. I'm sure I could get a truck driver who's doing nothing wrong to back over me if I behaved ignorantly enough. Absolutes like "always the driver's faults are just stupid, ignorant, poorly thought out, whatever you want to call it but they sure aren't good. It is every road user's ultimate responsibility to behave in a manner such that nobody else is forced to take emergency action to avoid them. The reason we have specific rules is so that people behave predictably (e.g. stopping at stop signs) making this easier. I say this as someone who walks a couple miles through the city every day.
ironic_ali 8y ago
> The car had the right of way, it was not acting maliciously, and she walked right in front of it. According to AZ law, asking the car to make what might be a dangerous last second swerve into another lane or slamming on the breaks to avoid hitting her is not a legal obligation as these are unsafe maneuvers My mother has dementia and until she was put into a secure home she had a habit of wandering. On three occasions she was picked up by police after midnight crossing the road. Your defense of laws protecting drivers is fine, but doesn't cover outliers like my mother who would have been knocked down at least, killed at worst. Is that ok for laws to protect the driver/AI driver from running over pedestrians who have lost their personal safety faculties?
- jussij 8y ago
  > but doesn't cover outliers like my mother who would have been knocked down at least, killed at worst So would it be ok if that self driving car did see the pedestrian walking down the freeway, tried to avoid the collision, looses control and end up running into the car coming the other way, killing all the passengers in both cars? The car was traveling at high speed down a dual carriage way (i.e. freeway) in the middle of the night. In a situation like that any sudden reaction by the on board computer is never going to end well.
  - kolleykibber 8y ago
    So in Arizona after running over and killing a careless pedestrian, human drivers just drive on at the same speed with all care and attention and don't slam on the brakes in fear and panic and usually spin?
  - kharms 8y ago
    The car was traveling at 44mph. A speed reduction to even 14mph would have probably made the collision survivable. If your argument is that the car was unable to drop 30mph over several seconds without causing an accident or swerving into opposing traffic, I don't know - maybe the self driving isn't there and shouldn't be on the road at all.
  - SilasX 8y ago
Neil44 8y ago
I would imagine that Arizona law is at least part of the reason why these trials were being done there, and not somewhere else.
agumonkey 8y ago
Man it must be hell to drive interstate and remember all the differences

by rsj_hn 8y ago

bryanrasmussen 8y ago

I can of course see how they are not criminally liable under Arizona law where the Automotive laws are pertinent... but, what if someone turns off safety features of a device and then someone is killed if those safety features had been on - would that be manslaughter under Arizona law?

argonaut 8y ago

Minor correction: the area was actually very well lit with street lights. The Uber dashcam video was just poor quality so it gave the impression it was really dark. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-victim-came-from-the-shadows-dont-believe-it/ https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/police-chief-said-uber-...

rsj_hn 8y ago
I certainly believe the Uber dashcam video was poor quality. But at the same time, the videos on the link you showed are a bit misleading because the holiday lights are not strung up all year, and in any case the collision happened after the bridge, where to the right of Mill Avenue is a big golf course which is going to be dark at night, and to the left are some desolate office buildings that would also be empty and dark. It's just not a well lit area, neither is it an area with a lot of pedestrians, so there aren't many crosswalks. You can explore for yourself here: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4380916,-111.9434265,3a,75y,339.44h,88.09t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1seT6nIdBMRY0jUlO4xlT4YA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4380916,-111.9434265,3a,75y,...
- argonaut 8y ago
  From the article: "In this nighttime video, posted to YouTube by Brian Kaufman on Wednesday, the scene of the crash can be seen around 0:33" "Black says in the video as he drives past the point in the road where Herzberg was hit (around 0:33)."
  - rsj_hn 8y ago
    Ahh, OK, so those Christmas lights are gone by then. Yes, if you look, you see a park/golf course on your right and some office buildings on your left. I guess how well lit it is will depend on how many lights are on in the office buildings, plus of course the street lights. But if you poke around the area, you see that the street lights are insufficiently spaced, at least that's my impression. That area north of the river is not a pedestrian area, even along Mill.

Phlarp 8y ago

Is AZ a significant outlier in this regard? Is AZ different enough from say, California, that Uber was incentivized to test in AZ as a way to mitigate liability exposure in the event of fatal crash? I was always curious why they were testing there as opposed to somewhere closer to HQ.

JeremyBanks 8y ago
Uber was testing in multiple locations, but they originally moved it to Arizona due to less regulation than they were encountering in California: https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-flee-to-arizona-after-california-shutdown/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/22/ubers-self-driving-cars-f...
rsj_hn 8y ago
I don't know the history too well, but remember Uber refusing to get some licenses in California and opting for AZ which doesn't require the same level of licensing. Others should correct me, but that was the buzz at the time. I always thought AZ had these laws because historically a lot of retired people are there who have slower reaction times and aren't going to be doing any stunt driving swerves, and it's generally not a pedestrian or bike friendly place. They prioritize cars. When I saw the protestors a while back pouring onto freeways in the east bay, I remember thinking no way would anyone try that in AZ -- the cars would just run right over them.
- DougBTX 8y ago
  > stunt driving swerves You've put a lot of emphasis on how dangerous and crazy it would be to have not run over the pedestrian, but in other jurisdictions learning how to do an emergency stop is required for all drivers before being allowed on the road independently. There are many reasons a car might need to stop unexpectedly (including the possibility of cars in front behaving erratically) so stopping along with maintaining safe separation between cars are basic driving skills expected in many countries. From your description AZ might be an outlier though.
  - 8y ago

Pristina 8y ago

Yeah. Not to mention the really nice dinners Uber lawyers took the prosecutor to to discuss the case.

maxmunzel 8y ago
[Citation Needed]

Dahoon 8y ago

They would have a hard time testing their cars like this a lot of other places. No wonder they picked Arizona. Around here (I'm in Scandinavia) if a car hits something other than another car it is always the drivers fault, jaywalking pedestrians or not. It is the responsibility of car drivers not to hit softer things - full stop. This and traffic in Paris are the real tests of self driving cars.

eythian 8y ago
Yeah, same in the Netherlands, the car driver is at best 50% at fault, typically 100%. I do want to see self driving cars in Amsterdam though, I think they'd just shut down and have a sob after not being able to move due to being swarmed with bikes well within any sort of safety area.
- bkor 8y ago
  There was a recent video by a Waymo person who dealt with understanding the world. He went into great detail about how to observe things. One thing he mentioned is that the car also has the goal of getting to the destination. There was an example of a pretty packed school area. The safest thing to do might be to completely stop. The car however slowed down and tried to make its intentions clear. Unfortunately I cannot find the video.. it also went into detail of how to spot that something unexpected might happen.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
> It is the responsibility of car drivers not to hit softer things - full stop. I get the feeling a lot of people on HN have never actually driven a vehicle or at least haven't in recent memory. If you're driving through a street at a perfectly safe and reasonable speed a sufficiently stupid pedestrian is still perfectly capable of creating a situation that causes you to hit them. Nothing is foolproof. I'm sure I could get a truck driver who's doing nothing wrong to back over me if I behaved ignorantly enough. Absolutes like "always the driver's faults are just stupid, ignorant, poorly thought out, whatever you want to call it but they sure aren't good. It is every road user's ultimate responsibility to behave in a manner such that nobody else is forced to take emergency action to avoid them. The reason we have specific rules is so that people behave predictably (e.g. stopping at stop signs) making this easier. I say this as someone who walks a couple miles through the city every day.

ironic_ali 8y ago

> The car had the right of way, it was not acting maliciously, and she walked right in front of it. According to AZ law, asking the car to make what might be a dangerous last second swerve into another lane or slamming on the breaks to avoid hitting her is not a legal obligation as these are unsafe maneuvers My mother has dementia and until she was put into a secure home she had a habit of wandering. On three occasions she was picked up by police after midnight crossing the road. Your defense of laws protecting drivers is fine, but doesn't cover outliers like my mother who would have been knocked down at least, killed at worst. Is that ok for laws to protect the driver/AI driver from running over pedestrians who have lost their personal safety faculties?

jussij 8y ago
> but doesn't cover outliers like my mother who would have been knocked down at least, killed at worst So would it be ok if that self driving car did see the pedestrian walking down the freeway, tried to avoid the collision, looses control and end up running into the car coming the other way, killing all the passengers in both cars? The car was traveling at high speed down a dual carriage way (i.e. freeway) in the middle of the night. In a situation like that any sudden reaction by the on board computer is never going to end well.
- kolleykibber 8y ago
  So in Arizona after running over and killing a careless pedestrian, human drivers just drive on at the same speed with all care and attention and don't slam on the brakes in fear and panic and usually spin?
- kharms 8y ago
  The car was traveling at 44mph. A speed reduction to even 14mph would have probably made the collision survivable. If your argument is that the car was unable to drop 30mph over several seconds without causing an accident or swerving into opposing traffic, I don't know - maybe the self driving isn't there and shouldn't be on the road at all.
- SilasX 8y ago

Neil44 8y ago

I would imagine that Arizona law is at least part of the reason why these trials were being done there, and not somewhere else.

agumonkey 8y ago

Man it must be hell to drive interstate and remember all the differences